Worcester city manager seeks new push for housing for the homeless

Nick Kotsopoulos Telegram & Gazette Staff @NCKotsopoulos

Sunday

Feb 11, 2018 at 5:43 PMFeb 11, 2018 at 5:43 PM

WORCESTER – With chronic homelessness in the city on the rise, City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. is establishing a task force to take an in-depth look at the community’s needs and resources and develop a plan to sustain a long-term system of permanent supportive housing for those in need.

He said the City Manager’s Task Force for Sustaining Housing First Solutions will consist of 20 to 25 members and include leaders from housing, social services, health care, philanthropic, government, and religious sectors.

The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, a consultant with expertise in developing such a plan, will provide support to the task force by guiding the process, the manager said.

Mr. Augustus said he envisions that the planning and assessment period will be from March to June and include a series of five or six full-group meetings, two public forums and the formation of three subcommittees to facilitate specific information regarding data, housing and support services for the homeless.

"I am proud of Worcester's record of success over the years through collective impact and community partnerships formed to address homelessness to date," the manager wrote in a report that goes before the City Council Tuesday night.

"There is great new energy to reinstate a plan to reverse the trend of adult chronic homelessness," he said. "I look forward to your support in reinvigorating our efforts to sustain a level of ‘functional zero’ among our adult chronic homeless population in Worcester and continue to serve all homeless constituencies across our community."

Since the city’s Department of Health and Human Services was reinstated in 2015, and through the efforts of the Quality of Life Task Force, Mr. Augustus said his administration has taken a "deeper dive" into understanding the complex challenges facing the city when it comes to chronic homelessness.

As of today, however, he said there are still more than 60 chronically homeless adults living on the streets or in a shelter, and "that number seems to be growing."

Mr. Augustus said the city’s "point in time" count indicated that chronic homelessness increased by 46 percent from 2016 to 2017, while unsheltered homelessness increased by 97 percent.

"I am deeply troubled by these trends after the decade of hard work our community has committed since 2007 to end chronic homelessness in the past," he said.

Mr. Augustus worked on the issue of homelessness in Worcester before he became city manager in 2014.

In 2007, as a member of the Massachusetts Senate, Mr. Augustus served on Worcester’s Task Force to End Homelessness, which offered a new approach to addressing the issue, an attempt to move away from the failed practices of the previous 20 to 25 years.

In 2011, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness recognized Worcester as the first city of its size to effectively end chronic adult homelessness.

In an effort to regain and sustain that momentum, Mr. Augustus said, Dennis Culhane of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice and director of research at the National Center for Homelessness Among Veterans, met with local leaders in December to discuss the growing shelter and street numbers in Worcester.

In an effort to better understand how the city’s system must adapt to meet the new challenges of the local community, Mr. Augustus said, his team spoke with Dr. Culhane, who said the numbers in Worcester are manageable.

"We know what we need to do because we have done it before," the manager said. "The difference this time is the emphasis on sustainability and projecting the resources required over time to continue our success."

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